Daily Report: Big Data Comes to the Medicaid Debate

By Jim Kerstetter

Jan. 10, 2017

Like so much in Washington, those partaking in the impending debate over Medicaid costs may lose sight of the facts. But that’s not to say the facts won’t be available.

A San Francisco start-up called Nunahas managed to gather the information of 74 million Medicaid recipients. It is a formidable achievement, data scientists said, given the state-by-state nature in which Medicaid is administered.

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The company was founded by Jini Kim, who worked with Google Health and was one of a handful of Silicon Valley executives recruited to fix Healthcare.gov after its botched start.

Ms. Kim, a veteran of health tech efforts, also has a personal history with Medicaid. As a child of immigrants, she was 9 years old when she helped her parents apply for aid for her autistic brother who began experiencing grand mal seizures when he was 8.

The information culled from Ms. Kim’s database is intended for Medicaid and researchers.. It could also help to make smart decisions about which Medicaid options work, how money is wasted and how it could be better spent.

As for her family members, she thinks they would have been bankrupted if it had not been for Medicaid.

Correction:

An earlier version of this briefing misstated the intended use of Nuna’s database. It is intended for use by Medicaid and researchers, not by private health carriers.

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